April 11, 2012

They Can Afford Nice Cars...

Got a new app for my Piece of Crap iPhone I4 called 'Photosynth' on a tip from Russ Bond of the Canadian Karting League.

It takes a series of photos, then stitches them together to make a single panoramic image.

When I spotted what looked like a yuppie fleet of cars, all parked incorrectly, I thought, "Now's the time to give it a try."

Because here was a line of nine vehicles, all reasonably high-end - a couple of BMWs, a Nissan Murano, a Range Rover, a VW GTI, a Porsche Cayenne.

Yes, in fact, it was at a Starbucks - why do you ask?

But what caught my eye was that they were all white.

And they were all parked nose-in.

It doesn't take much thinking to realize that backing in to a parking spot is the smart way to do it - you can see if there's anything in your way as you drive past the spot to line up to back in, and it's a million times easier, not to mention safer, to pull forward out of a spot than it is to back out.

Especially in tight quarters like this particular parking lot.

So these people were able to afford expensive cars, but not smart enough to know how to park them.

Unless of course smarts had nothing to do with them getting these cars; maybe they were all bought with Daddy's money.

I apologize for the lousy image quality. Maybe this is as good as Photosynth can do. Maybe the light wasn't good enough. Maybe I was a bit shaky, although I hadn't even had my latte yet...

The good news is that this means you can't make out the licence plates - we're not supposed to embarrass the locals; not individually anyway.

And you'll have to take my word for it that there were nine cars - you can only see six in this shot. As I said, it was my first try at this app, and I must have taken my finger off the button too soon.

Comments

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There are many reasons for parking nose first. I park my station wagon nose first in supermarket parking lots because it's easier to load that way. Bosses park nose first at work to show that it's more important to get to work than make a quick getaway. As for those funny shaped "Crossover SUVs" at the Starbucks, I imagine they're not easy to park backwards and the yuppies don't want to appear silly in front of their cohorts by parking crooked.

Another possible good reason to park nose first is if a bad driver ram into your parked car, it is much less damaging and less costly when they hit the trunk instead of the engine under the hood, provided that the front of the car is protected by a curb or by the building. At some parking lot it is warranted. But it is easier to back the car into a space.